1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for use as a child""s nail painting toy.
2. Prior Art
Various products have been advanced for painting finger or toe nails, but all are difficult to use and require a certain degree of manual dexterity. There remains a need for a toy for this purpose that is very easy to use by a child.
According to the present invention, a novel apparatus and method is provided that enables children to paint their finger nails or toe nails quite easily. The foregoing is accomplished by a novel apparatus that consists of a stand that holds a series of plates. Each plate is formed with a plurality of images as cutouts. This may be accomplished by any known engraving, stamping or molding process. One of the plates is located in an operative position on the stand, and a pivotal arm, carrying a pad print head and a squeegee, pivots from a starting position, toward the plate to pickup an image, and then reverses toward a depositing position where a child has a digit, finger or toe located in an orientation to receive the deposit of the print head. By a simple swiveling of the pivot arm, to and from, an image is transferred from the plate to the finger or toe nail. Nail paint is deposited on or just in advance of the cutout image of the plate prior to the swiveling motion; during pivot of the arm toward the plate, excess paint is squeegeed off and the replica of the image in the form of the paint is picked up and transferred to the finger or toe. By repeating the steps noted above, it is possible to recreate multi-color images of rather complex design, using for each deposit, a new image on the plate. To this end, the plate is provided with a way to index between each image pickup.
Other and further details of the method and apparatus of the present invention will become clearer from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention when taken with the appended drawings.